


send along another year

by ShowMeAHero



Series: sweet creature [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Babies, Birthday Party, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Married Couple, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “Hey, Mikey, can you take over here for me for a second?” Richie asks. Eddie turns to look at him, but his hands are still half-soapy and under the running water, so he can’t follow him as Richie darts out of the room. Bev sees him go, too, though, and Eddie watches her set her glass down before following him down the hall.“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Ben says.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: sweet creature [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674445
Comments: 4
Kudos: 132





	send along another year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AppleJuiceisboss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleJuiceisboss/gifts).



> For [wxnter_fire](https://twitter.com/wxnter_fire)!

_**july 6th, 2025** _

* * *

On a good day, Eddie considers himself something akin to the eye of a hurricane: the chaos is all around him, but it doesn’t really touch him. His family is insane and a frenzy of activity at the best of times, but it doesn’t bother him. It hasn’t bothered him in years, really. In his opinion, that’s a tremendous amount of growth.

On a rough day, though, Eddie’s just as storm-tossed as everybody else, and their daughter’s fifth birthday is a _rough_ day.

This is the first year Zoe’s actually had friends to invite. They’re a group of preschoolers, sure, but that’s two dozen children under the age of six in his house and yard. That’s _in addition_ to his other children and the Losers’ kids, some of whom are watching the madness and some of whom are willingly and gleefully engaged in it.

“This is fucking insane,” Mike comments to him as Eddie hoists bags of ice up out of the bed of his truck with him. Bill has to hop up to shut the thing, but he’s not strong enough to carry as many bags as Mike or Eddie, so he’s on clear-the-path duty, opening doors for them to get into the house.

“You’re fucking telling me,” Eddie replies. They skirt around a cluster of four-year-olds in the living room, carefully supervised by Patty, to get back to the kitchen. “Richie’s been going out of his mind for the last two weeks about this and I didn’t really _get_ it until today.”

“You always think I’m being overdramatic,” Richie says. He lets Eddie nudge him slightly as he goes by.

“I do not,” Eddie argues.

“You _so_ do,” Richie says. “You don’t say anything because you don’t wanna be like, _hey, dude, I think your dumb emotions are all out of whack again,_ but I can see it in your _eyes.”_

“He’s right,” Bev agrees. She leans against the counter next to Richie’s spot at the stove and says, “I can always see it in Ben’s eyes. He wants to call me out but knows he can’t.”

“And I never will,” Ben says, passing through the kitchen with a child Eddie doesn’t recognize in his arms. “Bandaids?”

“Oh, no,” Eddie says, holding his hands out. Ben passes the kid over, and Eddie examines him quickly, asking, “What’s your name?”

“Taylor K.,” the kid tells him tearfully. “I hurt my hand.”

“Hey, you’re gonna be okay,” Richie tells him. He scoops up a little bit of whatever he’s got on the stove in his spoon and brings it over to the kid. “Got any allergies?”

“Only cinnamon,” he says, and Richie grins.

“Perfect,” he says. “You like chocolate?”

Taylor K. nods eagerly as Ben grabs an antiseptic wipe out of their first aid kit and wipes off the scrape on the heel of the boy’s hand. He winces, and opens his mouth to either argue or cry, Eddie’s not sure which, but Richie sticks the spoon in his mouth. The kid swallows it, Eddie smoothes a bandaid over his palm, and then he’s off and running through the house again.

“Good work, team,” Mike comments. Eddie rolls his eyes as he pushes through the crowd of adults in his kitchen to wash his hands in the sink.

“Hey, Mikey, can you take over here for me for a second?” Richie asks. Eddie turns to look at him, but his hands are still half-soapy and under the running water, so he can’t follow him as Richie darts out of the room. Bev sees him go, too, though, and Eddie watches her set her glass down before following him down the hall.

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Ben says, passing off a hand towel. “By the way, I saw Seb with Stan, but I haven’t seen Leo anywhere.”

Sebastian is Zoe’s Irish twin, only ten months younger than her and recently turned four. He’s also decided Stan is the greatest person in the world and refuses to leave his side when they’re in the same ten-mile radius. Leo, on the other hand, is Richie and Eddie’s two-year-old, and he’s been attached to Richie at the hip since birth, so he’s been asleep upstairs for the better part of the morning and early afternoon in the hopes that he’ll be in as good a mood as possible when he comes downstairs later for the bigger parts of the party.

“He’s still sleeping,” Eddie tells Ben. “Hoping that he won’t be a nightmare about being separated from Richie for the cake and everything like at Seb’s party.”

“God willing,” Ben comments. Bev slips back into the room, just then, and Eddie all but tosses his hand towel aside as she jerks her thumb back over her shoulder in a sign for him to follow.

“What’s going on?” Eddie asks, feeling his heart speed up as he goes down his own hallway to the stairs. “Is everything—”

“Everyone’s fine,” Bev tells him. “Richie’s just not feeling well, he went upstairs to sit with Leo for a second.”

Eddie wants to groan, because that defeats the entire point of both keeping him rested and away from Richie; however, he also knows that Richie _knows_ that, so if he went up there, it’s for a good reason.

“Thanks,” Eddie says. “Would you—”

“Yeah, fine,” Bev tells him. “But you owe me one on Hazel’s birthday.”

“Agreed,” Eddie says before darting up the stairs, taking them two at a time based solely on velocity and strength as opposed to leg length. He’s opening the door to Leo’s room in twelve second flat, softly asking, “Hey, are you—”

“Yeah,” Richie cuts him off. Eddie sneaks in and shuts the door quietly behind himself before he takes the scene in. Richie’s sitting, not in the chair in the corner, but on the rug in the middle of the floor, holding Leo while he continues to sleep, unaware of what’s going on around him.

“You know he’s too heavy for you to lift right now,” Eddie says. He sits down cross-legged next to Richie anyways, right there on the rug. “What’s going on?”

“I felt sick so I left the room and then I saw all the kids out playing with Zoe in the back and I realized she’s not going to need me anymore and I started freaking out,” Richie confesses, all in one breath. Eddie processes it, for a beat.

“She’s— Rich, she still needs you, she’s turning _five,_ not fifty,” Eddie reminds him. Slow, patient, trying not to push, but still.

Still, regardless, Richie sniffles and looks down at Leo, stroking his hair back from his face. Everyone says he’s the spitting image of Eddie, including Eddie, even though it’s Richie who put their baby pictures side-by-side for the first time to make him connect the dots.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says. “I know. I’m sorry, I know this is a lot right now—”

“She’s turning _five,”_ Richie interrupts him. _“Five,_ Eddie. She starts real school now, she starts _kindergarten._ She’ll be doing math and writing and all that, and then she’ll be going into actual grades, and then middle school and high school and all four of them are gonna _hate_ us—”

“Slow down,” Eddie tells him. His own heartbeat is speeding up and he thinks about the concept of Zoe being in high school, of himself being the parent of a child _in high school._ Of a _teenager._ It makes goosebumps go up all over his arms. He still scoots in closer to Richie, pulling him in so his head is resting on Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie leans in, just a little bit, and pushes a curl of hair gently out of Leo’s face.

“Sorry,” Richie murmurs. “It’s her bir—”

“Don’t apologize,” Eddie says, “and it doesn’t matter what day it is, she’s not gonna notice if we’re gone for five minutes, she was having a great time with her friends.” Richie nods against his shoulder. “And, first things first, none of them are going to hate you, _least_ of all the one that’s not even _born_ yet, Rich. Second of all, Zoe is _always_ going to need you.”

“We don’t need _our_ parents,” Richie says.

“Our parents suck,” Eddie replies. Richie huffs a laugh as Eddie continues, “They do, they suck. Nice, normal parents are usually still involved in their kids’ lives. She’s always going to want you around, Richie, you’re her dad. Just— Sometimes she’ll be around other people, too.”

It makes Eddie’s chest hurt, so it makes his voice break, when he says _too,_ and Richie hears it, lifting his head to look into Eddie’s face. He reads his expression, the worried line of his brow and the turn-down of his mouth, and he kisses him for it. Eddie kisses him back, just soft, just for a second, before withdrawing.

“We should probably start waking him up and get ready to eat soon,” Eddie says quietly. Richie nods, but he doesn’t make a move to get up yet. “Richie?”

“In a sec,” Richie replies. He keeps looking down at Leo’s face, just for a minute longer, before he sighs and hands him off to Eddie. Eddie quickly takes him and stands, fast as lightning, so he can offer Richie a hand; Richie raises an eyebrow at him like he knows what he’s doing, but it’s old hat at this point, and Eddie hauls him up to his feet.

“I love you,” Eddie reminds him. Richie nods, face still blotchy-red, so Eddie leans up and kisses him. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Thanks,” Richie murmurs against his lips. He kisses him back once, then twice before pulling away.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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